


A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

by redtoes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: But not in a creepy way, F/M, Gen, Just because we didn't see Gaila doesn't means she's not on the ship, Kirk loves his crew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtoes/pseuds/redtoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As on any starship there are things the captain knows because he’s told them, things he knows despite the fact no one’s told him and things that he decidedly does not know despite being presented with evidence to the contrary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing.
> 
> This was written after Star Trek XIII but also works for Star Trek Into Darkness. I consider it asmy personal fanon for the first five year mission, post dating both revision movies.

As on any starship there are things the captain knows because he’s told them, things he knows despite the fact no one’s told him and things that he decidedly does not know despite being presented with evidence to the contrary.  
  
After three months in the captain’s chair James T. Kirk is still figuring out which knowledge belongs in which category.  
  
There is the knowledge that Scotty is conducting upgrades to the plasma relays in the warp nacelles.  
  
That Kirk knows.  
  
It could even be said that he approved the upgrades, Scotty having brought them up at the officers’ poker game with the words “I believe we can squeeze a bit more speed out of the old girl captain but it willnae be by the book.”  The hopeful joy of Sulu’s reaction had made refusal impossible.  
  
What Kirk steadfastly maintains he does not know is the manner in which Chief Engineer Scott is conducting these upgrades.  Kirk does not know anything about Cardassian-made plasma conduits or whatever shady dealings his chief engineer dabbled in at their last station stop to get the parts he didn’t want to requisition from Utopia Planetia.  
  
He doesn’t know about the euphemistically named “solvent production facility” that Scotty has set up in a storage room off desk 6.  He has absolutely no idea where the hundred proof booze came from that had the usually reserved Nurse Chapel dancing with Chekov at the last impromptu it-was-a-total-disaster-but-we’re-not-dead-yet-so-let’s-celebrate-the-end-of-the-mission party.  It’s just one of those things.  
  
He muses on this in his chair on the bridge.  What he should and shouldn’t know.  
  
He shouldn’t know, for example, about the crush Chekov apparently has on one of the girls in stellar cartography, but his navigator’s puppy dog eyes following Ensign Lupez around the lounge are hard to miss.  
  
He definitely shouldn’t know about Sulu’s reputation among the female crew but Gaila had mentioned it during their last assignation – the one where he tried to point out that a Captain sleeping with a junior officer in engineering was bound to end badly.  Gaila, as ever, had taken his pronouncements with a pinch of salt, pointing out that while he was lovable fun, others were too, and if she as an Orion in Star Fleet could bend fraternisation regulations enough to live to her cultural norm of multiple partners in multiple relationships then he could get around the damn rule that says the captain shouldn’t engage in recreational sex with his crew.  
  
But Kirk doesn’t know anything about any arrangement he might have with his Orion crewmember.  Nothing happening here, Admiral sir, let’s move along.  
  
Kirk knows about Spock and Uhura, though he technically shouldn’t - both are terribly discreet and the most he can generally hope to elicit from teasing Spock is that “Lieutenant Uhura is well.”  Teasing Uhura would be easier but something stops him.  Their shared history perhaps, or the fact that he now outranks her.  Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want to do anything to destroy the respect in her voice when she calls him “captain” – it’s fragile enough already.  
  
He knows about the tentative friendship has sprung up between his CMO and his Science Officer because it is mostly his doing.  If he chooses to pretend that the evenings when Bones and Spock put aside their mutual suspicion of each other to gang up on him about something he’s done don’t exist then he’s entirely within his rights.  He is the captain after all.  
  
He knows that Sulu is tutoring Chekov in fencing.  He knows that Scotty is instructing Chekov in brewing your own alcohol in between technical brainstorms about transporter technology.  He knows that Spock is teaching Chekov some sort of advanced Vulcan mathematics related to space-time.  He hopes Chekov has enough time to sleep with all the demands on his time.  
  
He knows that Uhura hums to herself when she’s working on a particularly tricky translation.  He liked to watch her surreptitiously as she does, focused on her work, completely unaware of her surroundings.  But Jim doesn’t do subtle well, and last time when he shifted his glance from Uhura he met Spock’s deeply-amused-beneath-all-that-Vulcan-training gaze and accompanying raised eyebrow.  
  
He knows that Scotty’s engine-made moonshine aside, Bones has all the best booze and is often willing to share.  He also knows that as captain his limit is one drink, regardless of how off duty his status may be.  He’s never off-duty really, he’ll always be there for his ship, his crew.  
  
Best damn crew in the quadrant.  
  
And while he has no clue what the future will bring or whether their luck will hold, he knows he has the crew to face down the universe and mould it to his will.  
  
That one he knows for sure.


End file.
